Mont Blanc – Shooting the Largest Panorama in the World

In 2014 a team of photographers embarked on a challenging mission to photograph the tallest mountain in Europe and create the largest ever panorama image ever created (with a commercial camera). The result – a 365 Gigapixel of interactive image shows the 11’th tallest mountain in the world like never before.

Giant Gigapixel images combine tens of thousands of images into one interactive picture which capture cities and locations in unprecedented details have become quite common in recent years. In the past 5 years we have seen huge Gigapixel images of Dresden (26 Gigapixels), Paris (also 26 Gigapixels), Dubai (45 Gigapixels), Budapest (70 Gigapixels), Shanghai (272 Gigapixel) and the previous largest panorama – London (320 Gigapixels).

The current image was shot from a glacier across from Mont Blanc (White Mountain), the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest peak in Europe outside of the Caucasus range raising 4,810 meters or 15,781 feet above sea level (ranked 11th in the world).

A still image of the huge panorama of Mont Blanc (the interactive version can be found here)

In order to shoot the image a team of 5 photographers led by Italian photographer Filippo Blengini had to climb to an altitude of 3500 metres wait for two weeks in a temperature of minus 10 degrees Celsius and look for a sunny bright day and spend 35 hours shooting. During this time they shot over 70,000 images which were combined in to the giant 365 Gigapxiel panorama.

Working on the gear on top of the mountain

Shooting Mont Blanc in figures/facts:

Hight: the pictures were taken at a hight of 3500 meters/11482 feet (Mont Blanc is 4,810 meters or 15,781 feet tall).

Images taken: over 70,000 images.

Gigapixels: the final interactive image is 365 Gigapixels.

Time: The team spent 2 weeks on the mountain (and 35 hours shooting).

Processing: The 70,000 images took over 2 months of work to combine into a single panorama image.

Storage: the entire project takes no less than 46TB of storage space.

Gear: The images were captured using Canon EOS 70D with a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8 II and a Canon Extender 2X III on top of a Clauss robotic head.